halloween

Subject: Lyr Add: HALLOWEEN (Violet Jacob)
From: seaayr
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 06:26 PM

the tattie liftin's nearly through
theyre plowin whaur the barley grew
and aifter dark, roond ilka stack
ye'll see the horsemen stand and crack
o lachlan, but i mind o you !

i mind foo often we hae seen
ten thoosand stars keek doon atween
the nakit branches, an below
baith fairm an' bothie hae their show,
alowe wi' lichts o' halloween.

there's bairns wi' guizards at their tail
clourin' the doors wi' runt o' kail,
and fine ye'll hear the skreichs an' skirls
o' lassies wi' their droukit curls
bobbin for aiples i' the pail.

the bothie fire is loupin' het
a new heid horseman's kist is set
richts o' the lum; whaur by the blaze
the auld ane stude that kept yer claes
i canna thole to see it yet !

but gin the auld fowks' tales are richt
an' ghaists come hame on hallow nicht,
o freend o' freends, what wad i gie
to feel ye rax yer hand to me
atween the dark an' can'le-licht ?

awa' in france, across the wave,
the wee lichts burn on ilka grave,
an' you an' me their lowe hae seen.....
ye'll mebbe hae yer halloween
yont, whaur ye're lyin' wi' the lave.

there's drink an' daffin', sang an' dance,
and ploys and kisses get their chance,
but lachlan, man, the place i see
is whaur the auld kist used to be
and the lichts o' halloween in france.......


a thought for halloween.................
violet jacob..................
1915..................

Subject: RE: halloween
From: Murray MacLeod
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 06:45 PM

Wiolet Jacob, what a poet. Has Jim Reid put a tune to this one?

And were you at Auchtermuchty this year, seeayr?

Murray

Subject: RE: halloween
From: seaayr
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 06:52 PM

of course..always at muchty....did we meet ??

and yes..another of violet's poems put to music by jim reid...
like ..the wild geese...... sensitive translation to music...

Subject: RE: halloween
From: seaayr
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 06:54 PM

forgot to say....lovely version of halloween on 'scots women' cd from celtic connections 2001, on greentrax...sheena and karine singing..

plus also on recent-ish sangsters cd......

cheers all

Subject: RE: halloween
From: katlaughing
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 06:59 PM

Thank you. That is lovely.

Subject: RE: halloween
From: seaayr
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 07:03 PM

thnx katlaughing....

yes tis lovely.....

try listening to the song.....

i intend to read it at the next 'poets and pints' session in ayr on monday..... although did read it two months ago at same place.....

that is 'poets and pints'.... geordies byre pub, ayr...first monday every month.....

cheers....hic

Subject: RE: halloween
From: 53
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 07:10 PM

we had only 4 trick or treaters.

Subject: RE: halloween
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 07:42 PM

We're up to ninety now, 53... even the dogs wear costumes in our new neighborhood..

Jerry

Subject: RE: halloween
From: NicoleC
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 10:46 PM

I live in a condo complex surrounded by fairly poor but safe and polite neighbors. They think we're rich, and the complex is well-lit. Halloween is practically a siege of Harry Potter and Spiderman-clad kids from dusk to well past midnight. You can always figure out the newbies in the complex... they have their lights on...

Subject: RE: halloween
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 11:01 PM

None came here. None at all. Totally peaceful evening with a little snow coming down. The only Halloweeny thing that happened was a showing of that old movie Betelgeuse, with Winona Ryder in her first movie role...the absolute image of my first girlfriend. Uncanny. Same basic psychology too. Doubly uncanny. Spooky even.

How appropriate!

- LH

Subject: RE: halloween
From: catspaw49
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 11:33 PM

My boys are now in a candy induced stupor, but once again, Halloween has been a big hit here in Bremen. It's a real throwback kind of place like a town in the 50's. We have a only a dozen streets or so, most of them still brick. The homes sit pretty closely together and the town only runs 5 blocks in either direction. And this year, like every other since we came here 14 years ago, we had about 400 kids come by. Yeah......400. Most are accompanied by parents and almost all say thank you.

Tonight, Karen took the boys out and had Sissy (female Weimaraner) along with her.   Sis loved it as much as the boys as she got lots of attention from the kids and adults as well. Jaeger (male Weim) stayed on the front porch with me and sat beside me as I gave out candy. He too enjoyed all the attention. When the kids returned they pigged out for awhile and then passed out on the den floor, wrapped up in blankets and surrounded by wrappers.

It will clean up tomorrow, they had fun tonight. And the folks in town will take down their Halloween decorations and get out the Thanksgivibg things.....which will be replaced with Christmas decorations the day after Thanksgiving. We take our holidays seriously here......and it reminds me of my own childhood of 45-50 years ago, a time that in so many ways is lost. Living here brings a bit of it back, so I can endure the conservative attitudes and other aggravations for that small taste of what once was. I hope my sons can find the same when they are my age.

Spaw

Subject: Lyr Add: A TOUCH OF THE PAST
From: Ebbie
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 12:39 AM

A TOUCH OF THE PAST

Just a touch of the past is all I'm asking
Just a feeling I'm wanting to know
It's a time where my spirit is walking
It's the place where I'm longing to go

How I love the old songs that they were singing
How they make my old heart leap with joy
They're a light in an ocean of darkness
That surrounds all my years as a boy

I can feel all the sadness of the traveler
Who has gone far away from his home
And he knows he can never return there
For the place and the people are gone

How I wish that my heart could ever wander
In the days that will be first and last
In my memory the things to be cherished.
Let me live with a touch of the past

Spaw, you made me think of this song. (I don't know who wrote it but it's on a Tony and Gary Williamson CD.)

Subject: RE: halloween
From: open mike
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 02:07 AM

yikes-i was looking for flowers to celebrate Dia de los Muertos..
Day of the Dead, where as in mexico, people remember their
loved ones who have passed on-it sounds like a combination of
memorial day (visiting and decorating graves) thanksgiving,
because there is a feasting, and birthday celebration,
as one usually fixes their long-gone person's favorite foods and recalls favorite memories from their life.
any way i was looking for chrysanthemums in fall colors as
the web sites say that marigolds and mums are traditional decor...
I'll be darned if the stores weren't already getting out the red and green!! too early!! now they will bombard us with x-mas carols
til we no longer appreciate them cuz we
ll be sick and tired of the muzak ones well before the
real ones come around....yuck....i want to love the music!!

Subject: RE: halloween
From:
Date: 30 Oct 03 - 04:49 PM

i was wondering if you had the lyrics to the halloween song "The Woblin Goblin with the broken broom". Thank you

---

Click here for the lyrics.
-Joe Offer- (e-mail sent)

Subject: RE: halloween
From: LadyJean
Date: 31 Oct 03 - 12:30 AM

Here it is 10/31/03, and I find myself alone, and wishing I wasn't. The song suited my mood perfectly. Thank you!

Subject: RE: halloween
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 31 Oct 03 - 02:38 PM

Thanks for the essay, Spaw. I enjoyed reading it and picturing your lovely town.

We won't get our trick-or-treaters for another few hours. Time for me to go out and get the candy. (I always wait to see what the weather will be like.)

Subject: RE: halloween
From: LadyJean
Date: 31 Oct 03 - 11:47 PM

I spent most of today helping the king of all self centered bastards move. (He's been at it for the better part of a month, and he STILL hasn't gotten everything out of his place!)
He lives in Bloomfied, a blue collar neighborhood, with a fairly high crime rate.
Well the trick or treaters were out in full force, costumed, and having a fine old time. There must have been a hundred of them out tonight.
Except for one woman who had brought her pet rat along, and was licking the poor beast, they were very nice. I was hauling things from one house to another at about 7 miles an hour, so as not to hit anyone, but the kids were out, and folk in Bloomfield trust their neighbors.

Subject: RE: halloween
From: mg
Date: 03 Nov 03 - 09:43 PM

I heard the Violet Jacob song on the radio today..a live365.com Scot station...forget the name of the station..it was by the Sangsters. The woman's voice was beautiful. Who is she and who are the Sangsters? Guess I'll do a google search.

mg

Subject: RE: halloween
From: Drumshanty
Date: 04 Nov 03 - 11:02 AM

There's not a lot about them online Mary. There's four of them. The woman singing "Halloween" is Ann and the is other woman is Fiona Forbes, as well as Scott and John who sing and play guitar. They are based in Fife and gig all over Scotland. I'm biased because I know them and have seen them a lot recently, but I love to hear them and their harmonies are outstanding. Especially their Burns stuff. I'm sure they won't mind me encouraging people to check out their CDs!

Subject: RE: halloween
From: mg
Date: 04 Nov 03 - 11:56 AM

I think I would like to buy one...can you say what is on their latest with Halloween (if it is their latest). mg

Subject: RE: halloween
From: Drumshanty
Date: 04 Nov 03 - 12:04 PM

There is a track list at tradmusic.com CD shop. It is their latest CD. The previous one is called "Begin" and it's also listed at tradmusic.com. Hope that is helpful.

Subject: RE: halloween
From: mg
Date: 04 Nov 03 - 03:14 PM

thanks. I did a request through Mudcat for it. I highly recommend what I heard yesterday on the radio. Maybe others will be interested if they are able to sell through Mudcat..at least U.S. peoples. mg

Subject: Lyr Add: HALLOWEEN / HALLOWE'EN (Violet Jacob)
From: GUEST,Craig Herbertson
Date: 12 Jun 11 - 03:52 AM

Here's the right words. It's from a poem by violet Jacob. It's a beautiful poem too

Hallowe'en

    THE tattie-liftin's nearly through,
    They're ploughin' whaur the barley grew,
       And aifter dark, roond ilka stack,
       Ye'11 see the horsemen stand an' crack
    Lachlan, but I mind o' you !

    1 mind foo often we hae seen
    Ten thoosand stars keek doon atween
       The nakit branches, an' below
       Baith fairm an' bothie hae their show,
    Alowe wi' lichts o' Hallowe'en.

    There's bairns wi' guizards* at their tail          [Mummers who go door-to-door]
    Clourin' the doors wi' runts o' kail*,          [celery stalks]
       And fine ye' 11 hear the skreichs an' skirls
       O' lassies wi' their droukit curls
    Bobbin' for aipples i' the pail.

    The bothie fire is loupin' het,
    A new heid horseman's kist is set
       Richts o' the lum; whaur by the blaze
       The auld ane stude that kept yer claes--
    I canna thole to see it yet!

    But gin the auld fowks' tales are richt
    An ghaists come hame on Hallow nicht,
       O freend o' freends! what wad I gie
       To feel ye rax yer hand to me
    Atween the dark an' caun'le licht?

    Awa in France, across the wave,
    The wee lichts burn on ilka grave,
       An' you an' me their lowe hae seen--
       Ye'11 mebbe hae yer Hallowe'en
    Yont, whaur ye're lyin' wi' the lave.

    There's drink an' damn', sang an' dance
    And ploys and kisses get their chance,
       But Lachlan, man, the place I see
       Is whaur the auld kist used to be
    And the lichts o' Hallowe'en in France!

       Violet Jacob

Subject: RE: halloween
From: GUEST,schlimmerkerl
Date: 12 Jun 11 - 10:45 AM

Many thanks for the corrected lyrics. I couldn't make it all out from the very good duet by Sheena Wellington and Karine Polwart, but i forget where i got it.

Subject: RE: halloween
From: GUEST,Scott Murray
Date: 12 Jun 11 - 11:51 AM

'runts o kail' - don't think that'll be celery Craig. I think it's colewort, or kale as we would better know it i.e a brassica with a braw stalk for banging on doors.

Voices From Their Ain Countrie, the poems of Marion Angus and Violet Jacob, edited by Katherine Gordon, published by the Association for Scottish Literary Studies in 2006 is well worth getting.

Subject: RE: halloween
From: katlaughing
Date: 12 Jun 11 - 12:29 PM

Thanks for the clarifications.

Subject: RE: halloween
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Jun 11 - 06:02 PM

Yes, you're absolutely right Scott. I just lifted it from this link

http://www.theotherpages.org/poems/part2/jacob01.html

and only scanned the text. Looked like a credible sort of site and I was really looking for 'gusiers' I didn't examine the footnotes. The old kailyard poetry...

In fact, I think I was looking elsewhere and found some obviously wrong lyrics ( the drookit curls' a great line, was obviously wrong somewhere else and I made assumptions). Such is life. It's a fine poem and a great simple melody that draws out every nuance

Subject: RE: halloween
From: Effsee
Date: 12 Jun 11 - 09:50 PM

..." O freend o' freends! what wad I gie
       To feel ye rax yer hand to me "...

how many of us read these words with a tear in the eye?